The Algae Society has opened two new exhibitions Confluence at the Cameron Art Museum in the U.S. and CONFLUIR : ecosistemas acuáticos y futuros especulativos in Spain. Both exhibitions assemble algae from the microscopic scales of phytoplankton and chlorophytes to the giant kelp of the Pacific Northwest and the Sargassum blooms in the Atlantic Ocean. Together we embrace a sustainable and equitable path forward, aware of the human+algal relationships and their complex roles in climate change.

The trajectory of life changed over a billion years ago with the appearance of unicellular algae, which altered the earth’s atmosphere by producing oxygen. Those primitive organisms evolved, and today, algae contributes nearly 70% of the planet’s oxygen while absorbing up to half of the CO2. Humans and our ancestors have been walking the planet for six million years. When you compare the origins of algae lineage to humans it seems clear that we have a lot to learn and discover about algae, especially in this time of ecological and environmental crisis. The political and policy process alone is too slow to guide a deep search for understanding and interventions to save the planet and its species. In response, and as an interventionary practice, the diverse international group of artists, scientists, and designers that constitute the Algae Society seek to galvanize the human species to become enamored with algae as an active and diverse community member bound together in an interdependent system of organisms adapting to a rapidly changing planet. Our view ultimately adopts a posthuman philosophical position and practice with humans and algae as companion species.